Frank Gehry: "Now the shapes of the exterior of Disney Hall are based on sailing. When you're wing-on-wing, with the wind behind you, it forms a beautiful space. And if you look at the front of Disney Hall, it's wing-on-wing, it's the two sails, and you're at the helm."

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director, Los Angeles Philharmonic: "No matter how great the design is, if it doesn't sound great, it's going to be a failure. Frank was very clear about this from the beginning. He said, 'This is a hall for the orchestra, and this is a building for music. And that has to be the first priority, and everything else is of lesser importance.' And I thought this was quite a statement from an architect. It's very unusual that an artist such as Frank puts the ego bit to a, sort of, lower level of importance than the actual function of the building."